Falcon Posted February 16, 2003 Share Posted February 16, 2003 I see solid body electric guitars made out of Alder, Swamp Ash, Maple, Agathis, Basswood and others. Which is "better"? Do the different woods make that much difference in the tonal quality? Q. How do you eat an elephant? A. One bite at a time! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cowbell Posted February 16, 2003 Share Posted February 16, 2003 Plywood,agathis,basswood, and that funky thing Ibanez makes in their basses are terrible. Alder,koa,maple,mohagony, and ash are all very nice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue Strat Posted February 16, 2003 Share Posted February 16, 2003 Originally posted by CowbellAllen: Plywood,agathis,basswood, and that funky thing Ibanez makes in their basses are terrible. Alder,koa,maple,mohagony, and ash are all very nice.Basswood is used a lot by metal guitarists, and it's not too bad. Lots of blues and country players like swamp ash, ash, and alder. Rockers use lots of mahogany. Maple is bright, mahogany is darker. Ebony is bright. Don't know about Koa. My favorite guitar body (out of what I own) is made from poplar (Mexican Tele). It seems to be the most resonant. BlueStrat a.k.a. "El Guapo" ...Better fuzz through science... http://geocities.com/teleman28056/index.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cowbell Posted February 16, 2003 Share Posted February 16, 2003 Ah yes, forgot to add poplar. Very nice, 4/6 my guitars are made of that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curly Dan Posted February 16, 2003 Share Posted February 16, 2003 conventional wisdom is that alder has more mids and ash is brighter Ash can vary more in weight, from very light to fairly heavy ash can also double as a baseball bat in a pinch "music heals" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gabriel E. Posted February 16, 2003 Share Posted February 16, 2003 None are "better" or "worse" but they all have different tonal characteristics. The construction of the guitar, scale lengh, bridge type, fret material, electronics, etc. also make a big difference so wood material alone is not a determiner of how a guitar sounds. Note that Leo Fender's prototypes for what became the Telecaster had pine bodies. He found that they dented too easily so he switched to ash - the wood shovel handles and baseball bats are made from. It was a purely cosmetic decision. Basswood works well for guitars with Floyd-type trems because it's relatively dark sounding and keeps the guitar from being too bright. Maple is an extremely hard (and heavy) wood that contributes brighness to the sound. Rosewood is heavy and dense but it's also very oily so it tends to retard vibration. How dry the wood is is another factor. "You never can vouch for your own consciousness." - Norman Mailer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mats Olsson. Posted February 16, 2003 Share Posted February 16, 2003 On Ed Romans website there's a lot of intresting info/opinions on tone woods. And lots more. /Mats http://www.lexam.net/peter/carnut/man.gif What do we want? Procrastination! When do we want it? Later! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Falcon Posted February 16, 2003 Author Share Posted February 16, 2003 The whole question in my mind came up because a friend made a comment that you could put good pickups and enough FX's on firewood and make it rock! Considering ALL the different shapes, sizes, and woods out there, it was hard to make a case for "quality" wood. I guess it really comes down to personal taste and the sound your after. Q. How do you eat an elephant? A. One bite at a time! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DC Posted February 16, 2003 Share Posted February 16, 2003 Ash is very heavy but really pretty lines, used a lot for clear finishes. Swamp ash is much lighter in weight with the same beautiful lines. A bit darker sounding. Alder is lighter in weight and darker sounding. Maple is bright but way heavy, that's why Les Pauls just use a maple cap on mahogony. They still come out quite heavy but have great sustain. My fav body wood is American Cherry. My favorite guitar I made the body from cherry and routed it out hollow and put a birch top on it. Combined with it's solid rosewood neck, it sustains better than any Les Paul I've ever played and weighs about half. My guitar with solid cherry body weighs way more but sustains just as good. It's a wood that was never really used by manufacturers due to the expense, but it's amazing toneful wood. It's really hard to find any 2" hardwood these days. That's why they're using popular. It's really similar to alder but more prevalent. I don't think it sounds as good as alder. My solid bodies: Cherry with birch top, solid cherry, cherry with Carpathian Elm top and binding, alder strat, maple neck through with alder wings, mahogony semi acoustic, and alder bass. -David http://www.garageband.com/artist/MichaelangelosMuse Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
funky hot grits Posted February 17, 2003 Share Posted February 17, 2003 Hmmm, Swamp ash 'darker' than regular ash? -My experience suggests the opposite. I would steer away from a heavy ash or maple body, as the density of the wood accentuates harsh tops. Swamp ash is just great, in my opinion. Very musical highs, slighly scooped mid, nice tight bottom. Every swamp ash guitar I've played has sounded great. Can't say that of any other wood. Basswood gets a bad rap, but if you can find a good piece, it'll sound great. Nice through the mids, with a fat bottom and slightly damped top end. Tom Anderson, Suhr and Ernie Ball wouldn't use this wood if it were junk. Alder varies quite a bit, but nothing beats it for classic 60's strat tone. -Bear in mind that finish plays a large part in the overall tone of a guitar. Heavy polyester coats sound much deader and less complex than unfinished, lightly oiled or nitro laquered guitars. "Funk is it's own reward."- George Clinton Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gabriel E. Posted February 17, 2003 Share Posted February 17, 2003 The whole question in my mind came up because a friend made a comment that you could put good pickups and enough FX's on firewood and make it rock! Considering ALL the different shapes, sizes, and woods out there, it was hard to make a case for "quality" wood. Your friend would be wrong. First of all, you can't make a shitty sounding guitar sound good using effects. Unless you're Sonic Youth, too many effects will make you sound like an 80s hair metal player. Paul Reed Smith has a theory that the wood on an electric guitar is even more important than it is on an acoustic. This is because you are taking the relatively weak vibrations from a solidbody and magnifying them hundreds of times. If there are any flaws, they WILL be noticable. In my experience this is true - electric guitars that sound good unplugged sound good amplified. Electric guitars that sound dead unplugged sound bad amplified. It's a holistic thing - EVERY aspect of a guitar's construction contributes to the tone. That being said, the amp is even more important. Note that a shitty guitar through a great amp will always sound better than a great guitar through a shitty amp. "You never can vouch for your own consciousness." - Norman Mailer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chip McDonald Posted February 18, 2003 Share Posted February 18, 2003 Swamp ash isn't "dark"... I prefer swamp ash for the slight scoop, balanced sounding highs relative to the low end, not heavy. I think chordal-wise it has a bit more clarity as well, but that's really subtle but probably a function of not being really exaggerated in any range. Guitar Lessons in Augusta Georgia: www.chipmcdonald.com Eccentric blog: https://chipmcdonaldblog.blogspot.com/ / "big ass windbag" - Bruce Swedien Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
baronedo Posted February 19, 2003 Share Posted February 19, 2003 My advice is to not get too hung up on the wood but instead get a wood known for decent tone and then look at the whole guitar. My now favorite Strat, is a Strat Plus with natural finish and a beautiful Swamp Ash body. Although the guitar sounded good acoustically (which should tip you off that the guitar has potential), when amplified it sounded thin and trebly. I was really to get rid of it thinking that the Swamp Ash body was the tone culprit - boy was I ever wrong. It turned out that the gold lace sensor pickups were the tone problem and when I switched to Kinman pups, it turned into a tone monster. I have since replaced the pups on my early model Tex Mex Strat (with poplar body) with Kinman pups with similar and extremely great tone results. BTW, the Kinman pups I selected were the Hank Marvin modern fat tone model(I think it is FV- HMS). They are hotter noiseless single coil pups and the really have fat tone and guts. My theory is that if you can get the guitar to sound good acoustically, then with good pups it will sound good electronically. It makes sense because the pups are just miking the acoustical sound the guitar makes. It's analogous to a singer's voice. If the singer has a good voice, it will sound good miked. However if the voice is lousy, all the miking and effects in the world won't help. The bottomline - pay attention to your pups because unfortunately most of the stock pups are pretty lousy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Falcon Posted February 20, 2003 Author Share Posted February 20, 2003 Hi All, Sorry I took so long to get back to this thread. Life! & all. Anyway I appreciate all the opinions expressed yea & nay. especially about the various tonal qualities of all these different kinds of woods. I want to agree with Gabriel that it is about the wood, but I also think Lancer has a good point. My heart & soul says wood matters. My mind says no way! Look at all the really wierd guitar shapes out there that people spend serious money on. Many of them with celebrity endorsements (for what that is worth!), and they really rock. I have heard really good things about Kinman pickups and their website has some interesting reading. If you listen to the pickup maufacturers you get the impression, without their ever really saying it, that THEIR pup's will turn your toneless dog into a monster. I think (maybe) that wood really does play a part that speaks to that inner self, but not as much to the electrified, amplified, and fx'd sound. Given that, I agree that the better an electric guitar sounds unplugged, "acoustic", the better it SHOULD sound plugged in. But I've been proven wrong before. Q. How do you eat an elephant? A. One bite at a time! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
t-noah Posted February 23, 2003 Share Posted February 23, 2003 falcon, you might check this out - from the carvin bbs: http://65.112.173.194/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=006690 t-noah Big Back McGee Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue Strat Posted February 23, 2003 Share Posted February 23, 2003 When you talk about electric guitar tone, you can't just consider one element. It's the total accumulation of it all, the body & neck, the pickups, the cable you're playing through, the effects, and the amp. It all matters! Now we get down to my opinion. I believe that wood is the most important factor in having a guitar that sings. The wood has to be strong enough and fit tight enough to act as a single piece. The neck should fit tight (not necessarily neck thru or set neck, although that may be best from a construction standpoint) into the body, and both should be fairly resonant. The electronics can't do their job if the guitar is a piece of crap. Pickups are 2nd most important, followed by the amp, but they're really part of the same system. BlueStrat a.k.a. "El Guapo" ...Better fuzz through science... http://geocities.com/teleman28056/index.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Falcon Posted February 23, 2003 Author Share Posted February 23, 2003 OK. I followed "t-noah's" link to a discussion on Carvin's Bulletin board and from there to Warmoth's site. "bluestrat" makes an excellent case for QUALITY construction, but after all the opinions expressed. it looks like it comes down to this. There is no "bad wood", only different sounding wood. So some of the woods like Agathis and Basswood, that some people like to "sniff" at, are not really bad wood, just different sounding and better for some applications or sounds than others. It really is about the whole guitar. The materials, the quality of construction, the electronics, the strings, the amp, heck even the patch cables matter, to repeat "bluestrat". All of this combines to make a guitar that sings to the individual, or not. Now ... I recently checked out 5 different Fender Squires at a local store. At least 3 out of the 5 had a distinctly different sound from each other. Otherwise they were all brand new and "identical. Where does that leave us?? Q. How do you eat an elephant? A. One bite at a time! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alndln Posted February 23, 2003 Share Posted February 23, 2003 Not to sidetrack anyone too much,but didn't Alembic use Hawaaian Koa wood for their basses/guitars? I think maybe Garcia had a couple of custom guitars made from Koa as well.Never played an Alembic and couldn't tell either way. "A Robot Playing Trumpet Blows" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Falcon Posted February 23, 2003 Author Share Posted February 23, 2003 Oh heck, sidetrack away. I'm still trying to figure out what "Ovangkol" is. It seems to be showing up in more and more acoustics, both high-end (Taylor's, Martin's) and low-end (Hohner's). If it works for acoustics, would it work for solid bodies? The questions just never end. Q. How do you eat an elephant? A. One bite at a time! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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